This might sound a bit dumb but when someone asks you if your track is mastered what do they mean?? And is it something i can do??
Thanks
They’re asking you if your track is mixed down, finished, ready to go to the label. Meaning, has it had the finishing touches put on it audio wise. Once you finish writing a track, you go through a process called mastering. Where you go through and fix all the eq, compression, limits, etc. This process is almost always done to the final audio, and not any midi parts. Most prefer to have this portion done professionally. If you’re sending your stuff off to a record label and they like it, chances are that they will master it for you for the release. This may incur a fee depending on who you’re dealing with. If you’re a paid member of SA then there is a Mastering tutorial that explains the process and shows you a technique on how to do it. I would recommend starting there, otherwise there’s all kinds of useful stuff on the web.
Raymond
Thanks for the reply. I’ve had a quick look at the video’s. Basically a label said they maybe interested in my track and they asked if it had been mastered. I just thought it was something that was done by the label in a more proffesional manor rather than myself tweaking things as i have a very limited set up.
They dont do the mastering and want me to do it - so looks like a night in front of those tutorial vids!
Hope u’v got a good set of monitors and I don’t mean the speakers u use from ur hi fi :w00t: try and listen to ur track in different situations too ie in the car, on an ipod, in a club, and loud and quiet in all these situations remember ur track won’t only be played in just a club or just on the radio…
Thanks for the advice. I have tried it in the car and on my ipod although i guess i should try it out in a few other places. My worry though is will i be tweaking it for the sake of tweaking it??!
Im really struggling with this mastering. I’ve downloaded the free plugins from the tutorial video but apart from that i dont have much else and i just seem to make it sound worse than before i started. Can anyone help please?
My suggestion is to not master it yourself. Mastering…uuuuhhhh mastering takes a long time to learn how to do. Even then, there are only a few in the world that are exceptional at it. It definitely won’t come over night.
mastering is difficult to nail.
it will come with time
the longer you make music, the quicker you will know what it is you’ve got to tweak.
A/B your track with commercially released stuff is the best way to learn!
http://www.stmastering.co.uk/
http://www.blacklistedmastering.co.uk/about.htm £30 for one track here and he has mastered some of the top producers in the industry